Introduction
We received an email recently regarding a site dedicated to
teaching basic music lessons to people who are blind. some audio music lessons existed
in the National Library Service (NLS) catalog, but not many people spoke about
them, perhaps causing some people to think that they no longer were available.
Music for the Blind
Although this site is not new, two things make it stand out.
First, the site offers basic lessons for more than a dozen instruments. For a
number of years, the available lessons mostly were for guitar and piano alone.
Some of these lessons, though not all of them, became available on NLS. Second,
all of the lessons are done totally by ear; there is no print, braille, video, or
music notation.
The teacher describes techniques totally by ear. You hear
what the instructor is doing and, after some instruction, are asked to do what he
does. The lessons come on CDs, tapes, in some instances, and downloadable audio
files. There also is a place on the homepage to s…